technology

What a week it has been. Unless perhaps you have been off-world or visiting another time era all this past week, you know we lost Apple co-founder and former CEO, and great tech innovator and visionary, Steve Jobs.

It is a good chance that there wouldn't be a Doctor Who: Podshock show if it were not for Apple under the leadership of Steve Jobs making the iPod so ubiquitous across the world. It certainly wouldn't had been called "Podshock" at least ("iPod" begat "podcast" begat "Podshock"). Now in our seventh year, it has been produced from the beginning using Apple products as it is today.

This week is the annual CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas, which means there is a tremendous amount of tech related announcements coming out of the show. As often is the case, there is some crossover between tech and sci-fi. The Panasonic booth had a special "most impressive" (as they termed it) announcement of (pre-orders for) the Star Wars films coming to Blu-ray. I had heard there would be a TARDIS speaker system at the show, but didn't have much details on it. Engadget has come to the rescue (since I am not at the show myself) with this report of hands-on prototype of the new Speakal TARDIS speaker dock and Bluetooth speaker and IR remote control system.

I am assuming it will work with the iPhone as well as the iPod. The photos show an iPhone in the dock (a white at that). If the speakers are shielded enough to prevent GSM radio noise interference from the iPhone, it should work.

Just as Doctor Who: Podshock is celebrating it's 5th year in production, Research In Motion (RIM) has launched its new free Blackberry Podcasts service and application. Among the initial offerings of podcasts included is the popular venerable Doctor Who: Podshock. The new service allows Blackberry smart-phones to find, download, and consume podcasts on the mobile device from leading providers. Content can be downloaded via Wi-Fi or over the cellular network and played on the Blackberry player.

We are very pleased to have Doctor Who: Podshock included among other shows part of the Wizzard Media network on the service as part of their launch. We look forward to listeners from the many Blackberry users out there across the world.

After five years producing Doctor Who: Podshock it is still just as exciting today to discover new audiences as it was when we started. We look forward to them being a part of the show.

We welcome RIM and Blackberry smartphones to the popular and rapidly growing podcast medium.

Long time Doctor Who: Podshock listener, Worth Godwin offers computer training in plain, easy to understand english for both Apple Mac and MS Windows PC users. Upon learning of our call out for advertisers and sponsors in order to keep Doctor Who: Podshock going, Worth stepped up and offered us an affiliate sponsorship opportunity with his computer training business.

With the release of iPhone 3.0 OS/firmware upgrade last week from Apple (free for all iPhone models), it gives listeners of Doctor Who: Podshock yet another way to leave us audio feedback for the show if you use an iPhone. Included in the upgraded software is the ability to create Voice Memos.

How can I play AAC files on my non-iPod player?
We have two feeds, one is the enhanced podcast AAC format that will play in any device or software that is compatible with the AAC format (this automatically includes all Apple products such as the iPod, iPhone, iTunes, etc.). Enhanced podcasts include chapters, images, and URL links. They also support higher quality audio without increasing the file size. Our other feed is a plain MP3 format feed which should work in just about any device or player.